This invention relates generally to systems and methods for the providing of teaching and/or training. More specifically, the invention relates to a teaching and/or training approach that utilizes highly compartmentalized content modules, frequent individualized feedback, and a highly flexible, configurable, and targeted learning matrix for navigating the various content modules on an individualized basis using relevant data tracked by the system.
In a world of increasing technology, complexity, and specialization, the importance of education has never been greater. The increased demand for education is not limited to traditional academic environments such as colleges, universities, k-12 schooling, and other more traditional academic environments. Businesses, government entities at all levels, non-profit organizations, and other organizations increasingly provide job-related training, in addition to other forms of education, skill acquisition, and knowledge conveyance.
New academic subjects, job skills, and other forms of knowledge, information, analysis, techniques, and skills (collectively “knowledge” or “education”) are being created every day. Some of the subject matter thought to be of crucial importance in the present is only a short number of years old. The impact of the every increasing aggregate knowledge base should not be underestimated. However, improvements with respect to education tools and methodologies to convey knowledge have been substantially more modest.
Many technology advances have spilled over into education systems. New technologies such as computers, the Internet, and other technological advancements (collectively “new technologies”) have a significant presence in both academic and non-academic education environments. However, education systems have not been designed, implemented, or configured to take advantage of the iterative processing, database capabilities, and other advantages of the new technologies that would allow information to be taught in a fundamentally different way. Instead, new technologies are being used to simply automate old education processes that used to be manual processes. The improved opportunities for communication brought about by such new technologies is not to be underestimated. However, the new technologies have not been configured to adjust with the core issue of how people actually learn, and how technology can bring about fundamental improvements to the learning process. Whether the particular learner is a fast learner, a slow learner, or an average learner with respect to a particular subject matter, all learners can benefit from a more targeted, interactive, and modular approach.
Modern information conveyance techniques are not fundamentally different from those used in United States in the 1800's, and by other civilizations and cultures at even earlier times. The education process, including the knowledge and skill conveyance provided in non-academic environments, is highly linear. All students in the class are presented essentially the same material, in essentially the same fashion and order. This is despite the fact that each student brings a different knowledge base, a different past education history, different education goals, and different methods of learning. The existing linear system is thus less individualized than it should be. Quick, slow, and average learners alike are needlessly hampered by such linear and non-interactive education processes.
Even when taught on an individual basis, students and others to whom information, knowledge, and skills are to be conveyed (collectively “students” or “learners”) are traditionally taught in a linear manner, with infrequent feedback relating to the student's acquisition of the desired skills, knowledge, and information. The characteristics of low interactivity and high linearity are particularly pronounced in formal academic environments, although non-academic environments suffer from similar limitations.
Semesters that typically span across a number of months constitute the primary building block of time in the education process. For example, a student's performance during the first few weeks of a semester-long course does not typically impact the materials taught during the last few weeks of that same semester-long course. In such a traditional environment, a student's failure to grasp critical material is not identified in a manner that impacts the student's curriculum until an inadequate grade for the course prevents satisfaction of a particular perquisite for a subsequent course or a graduation requirement. Moreover, if a student has a fundamentally inadequate or flawed understanding of a subset of the materials in a particular semester course, the student could pass the class, only to encounter trouble in subsequent courses due to a lack of understanding of the particular subset of materials. For example, an engineering student can “get by” in a particular mathematics course because a particular type of problem was merely one of many, only to find that the same particular type of problem is the basis for an entire advanced class of physics or engineering a year or two later.
The existing art does not identify the strengths and weaknesses of a student's performance in units that are small enough to optimize the learning opportunities of the student. Semester-long time frames are much longer than the “bandwidth” with which students learn. It would be desirable for the education process to be broken down into smaller modular learning units. This would facilitate the ability of a system to truly target the teaching process to the particular student or user.
The syllabus of a semester-long course is generally predetermined from start to finish in a very linear manner. In prior art systems and methodologies, subject matter is taught in a predetermined order that fails to take into account the specific difficulties and strengths of the students in the course. Similarly, the particular goals of the students are also ignored. For example, different “story problems” using differential equations or integral calculus should be used if a particular student is pre-med than if the student wants to be a mathematician.
It would be desirable to integrate all potentially relevant information relating to a student, including the student's learning goals, the subject matter(s) being studied, past performance on tests with regards to specific content, etc. into a single learning matrix that could manage the learning process for a student.